Ryanair is cutting a number of services from the UK to Sweden, according to the BBC website this is due to an additional charge tax the Swedish government is introducing on all flight of 94 Swedish Kronor on domestic flights and and 188 Swedish Kronor on international flights.

It is weird how they are only cutting back on selective routes and not accross the whole board.

The cancellation of the Vasteras service from Luton is another in a string of services that Ryanair has pulled out of from the airport in the last 18 months. Other services I recall being withdrawn are Aarhus, Dinard, Venice Treviso and I am sure there are more...

I suspect they will be reducing the fleet to three 738's being based at LTN this winter. The base doesn't seem to have been the success that Ryanair hoped for and when they expanded the base to four aircraft in Feb 2005, they promised this would be the start of many other aircraft to be based at the airport. But with Stansted only being just down the road, the need for a base at Luton does not really seem necessary.

That dreadful MOL will try and spin any failings of FR!!! How the hell can they judge what impact a tiny additional tax will have on future bookings? If anything they should be more concerned about all the publicity about how they mark-up airport goverment taxes when they sell a seat on one of there cramped airplanes!!!

Seems strange how they are happy to continue operating the flights and only these flights which have had the plug pulled on them.

It has not even been confirmed yet if this tax is going to be implemented, so would be interesting to see if the Swedish government decides not to go ahead with this tax if Ryanair will re-intoduce the flights.

Ryanair, Europe's no.1 low-fares airline, today (Tuesday, 11th July
2006) announced significant reductions in its services to and from Sweden. The airline announced the cancellation of its twice daily service from Stockholm-Vasteras to London-Luton, a reduction in its Malmo-Sturup to London-Stansted from twice daily to a daily service and a reduction in its Gothenburg City Airport to Glasgow-Prestwick service from five weekly flights to three weekly flights. These reductions in service will be effective from the 28th of October 2006. Passengers will be re-accommodated on another Ryanair service or, in the case of Stockholm-Vasteras passengers will also be offered a full reimbursement
of their fare.

Ryanair has taken this decision due to the proposals by the Swedish Government to introduce a new 94SEK tax, which will effectively add a further 30% to the average cost of Ryanair's fares.

"The Swedish Government is destroying low fare travel for Swedes and for those people who want to visit this beautiful country by attempting to push up the average cost of Ryanair's fares by over 30%.
The introduction of this tax will make Swedish tourism uncompetitive when compared with cheaper alternatives in Spain, Italy and elsewhere in Europe. Tourism into Sweden has grown only due to the introduction of low fares by Ryanair. Last year, we carried over 2.4 million passengers to and from Sweden and Ryanair's incoming passengers contribute over 2bn
SEK to the Swedish economy. The volume of this tourism is completely
dependent on the existence of low cost air access. With the introduction of this tax the Swedish Government is now attempting to charge a premium for passengers to visit Sweden over and above the cost of visiting all their other destinations in Europe.

"On the one hand the Finance Minister Per Nuder is claiming that the Swedish travel industry must grow and that he intends to invest significant sums of money to attract tourists. However, his Government is putting in place policies which are destroying tourism and removing all the economic benefits which it brings. In addition, he is undermining the ability of Swedish industry to compete internationally by making the cost of travel more expensive.

"Finally, his Government is removing the benefit of low cost access which Ryanair and other low fare carriers have brought to the country.

"This is a very sad day for the Swedish consumer and Swedish tourism. We hope this Government will see sense and reverse its decision to implement this iniquitous tax".

We Swedes are taxed to death already so any demonstration against new taxes are good IMO. The EU has temporarily stopped the new tax. After the elections here however it will be brought back on the table

How are yields on the routes that they are closing or reducing frequencies on? If they have to sell one-pound fares to fill up those flights, they ain't gonna make any money and therefore they drop the routes or reduce frequency to boost yields...?

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